Dear friend! Please convey immediately to Rakhmetov that he is behaving toward us in a positively swine-like manner. He cannot imagine to what degree everyone here is waiting from him for definite and precise, encouraging communications, and not telegrams of the sort he sends. The public has simply worn itself out in eternal waiting and uncertainty. It is absolutely impossible that Rakhmetov has nothing to write about: he sees and has seen a mass of people, spoke with Zemlychka, corresponded with Boroda, with Moscow lawyers and literary figures, etc. and so on and so on. He must keep us au courant**, he must transmit connections, communicate new addresses, send correspondence, tell about business matters and interesting meetings. Rakhmetov has not sent us a single new connection! This is monstrous.

Not a single piece of correspondence, not a single communication about the group of literary figures in Moscow.

For if Rakhmetov should fail tomorrow, we cannot make use of anything, as though he had never lived!! This is a disgrace; he could write about everything and anything without the slightest danger, and he only hinted at some young forces and so on. (What is known about Bazarov, Friche, Suvorov and others?) He must spend no less than once a week (by God, this is not much) 2-3 hours on a letter of 10-15 pages, otherwise, in truth, every connection will actually be sever-

* The identity of the person in question has not been established. Ed.

** - in the picture. Ed.